During Tuesday’s Race & Environment in America webinar, faculty from different departments discussed the complicated intersections of race and climate. This was the penultimate webinar in the school year. Race & Americaseries, which is sponsored jointly by the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America and the Office of the Provost.
Scott Frickel, Professor in Environment and Society and Sociology moderated the event. He answered questions and led a discussion between Mark Cladis, Chair of Religious Studies, and Elizabeth Fussell. Elizabeth Fussell is a professor of population studies and environmental and society.
Cladis brought W.E.B. literary arts to the discussion, while Fussell focused on demography data. Fussell emphasized sociological and demography studies, while Cladis brought the literary arts of W.E.B. to the conversation. They combined their expertise to offer an interdisciplinarity view of how race and environment are connected.
Frickel, who kicked off the event, said that the intersection between race and the environment is something that more people at Brown are considering and paying attention too. The consequences of climate change and related ecological crises are already starting to unfold before their eyes.
It is difficult to imagine two more important topics apart, so Cladis stated that today we are bringing them together.
Cladis outlined three ways Cladis understood the connections between race and nature.
Cladis stated that the first link is the one between the subjugation and land of people of color. Both of these have been exploited by extractive capital, greed, cruelty, and racial and ecological prejudice. Cladis also stated that environmental toxicity has a second link.
For example, African Americans in the United States are 75% more likelyHe said that whites are more likely to live near industrial facilities that pollute and directly impact the health of local residents than blacks.
Cladis stated that the third connection was about how nature and the greater than human can be a vital agent in supporting communities of color and challenging racism. It may sound romantic to talk of the more than human supporting communities in color, but it is a truth I believe cannot be denied.
Cladis spoke about Silko’s fictional novel Ceremony, set in Alabama’s swamplands. It focuses on Indigenous traditions of Navajo tribes and describes how a uranium mine created hazards for the environment, threatening the health and well-being of those communities.
Cladis compared Ceremony with The Souls of Black Folk, which uses a swamp for an allegory of culture. Cladis stated that the southern, white culture sought subjugation of both (nonwhite) bodies as well as swamplands.
Fussell also discussed the meaning and impacts of swampland, and how race and interactions with the environment are intertwined. She spoke about her experience in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, 2005, and her subsequent research on the impacts.
Fussell stated that Katrina created a greater disaster than it could have otherwise. Multiple places where the levees were supposed to protect the city below the sea level failed, and floodwaters flooded the city faster than they could be lifted.
Fussell explained that black residents are more likely to live near areas that have experienced extreme flooding due to racist housing practices. Fussell says that systemic racism can lead to inequal outcomes and harms following extreme weather events.
She stated that social vulnerability to environmental hazards is socially constructed.
The Herald previously reported that previous webinars included Race & Inequality as well as Race & Poetry.
We are close to the end of our second season of this fantastic series, said Tricia rose MA87 PhD93P14, professor of Africana and associate dean at the faculty for special initiative and director of CSREA. Over the past year and three quarters, we have featured and shared research by dozens more Brown faculty members.
The America’s Race and PerformanceThis semester’s series will end with the webinar on April 19.
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